Parallels
by CountryGrl
Summary: Two love stories intertwined, the same but different. Maria/Luke, Clyde/Rani.


**AN: Can be a companion piece to my _The Secret Diary..._but stands alone. I realised that, by writing about their kids, I was committing myself to being a Luke/Maria AND Clyde/Rani shipper - so I decided to write something for the both of them. I wanted to show how their stories, though similar, would be different. Bold print is Rani and Clyde's story, normal is Maria and Luke. I hope you enjoy - and please leave a review! :) **

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Their first kiss was on a bench, in a snow-covered park. Cold lips placed tentatively over cold lips, lasting only a second, full of the innocence only he was capable of. They walked home hand in hand.

**Their first kiss – the first one that counted, anyway – was against a wall, out of breath from a Sontaran chase, so**** relieved to be alive that it was pure instinct. They pulled away after a moment, heard another laser fired and ran. **

His blue eyes haunted her, imprinted on the inside of her eyelids as she tried to sleep on the long flight home. She slept eventually, but it brought only dreams of him, and when she stepped off the plane she was already planning her next visit.

**His brown eyes looked so lost, sometimes. For all his big man act those chocolate orbs betrayed the little boy who hid inside. When she caught him looking at her she would turn away, ****only to stare back when she knew his gaze had shifted onto something else.**

Even pixelated on a computer screen she was beautiful. He cursed the time difference which cut their conversations short. Each time she returned – too briefly and not often enough for his liking – he would take her in his arms, almost knocking the breath out of both of them. But each time, he had to let go.

**His mates teased him, falling for the he****ad's daughter, what was he like? He did his best to ignore them, if only because he was afraid they might be right. Clyde Langer did not fall for anyone. But they saw it, still, long after the mockery stopped and he thought they'd forgotten about it. **

Hiding from the Qai in a disused warehouse, hearing their footsteps coming closer and knowing they'd find her in seconds, she closed her eyes and thought of him, and how he'd never know how she died, all those miles away. The door crashed open and she gritted her teeth. It was her dad, come to tell her Torchwood Four had taken them down. They were safe. The tears came anyway as she realised how close she'd been to never seeing him again.

**She heard the shot. Looked behind her and saw his fallen body on the floor, completely still. H****er body ached to go back to him, tell him…tell him what? – but she remembered the last words she'd heard him say, "Run, Rani, don't wait for me, get help." She forced herself to move, kept going until she lost them, at which point she collapsed against a wall. It was the same one she'd leant against, the first time he'd… She let herself break down, then, until she felt arms around her and a voice. "I must be better at playing dead than I thought." She slapped him. **

He told her he loved her at the airport, just as her flight was announced as boarding. She told her she loved him too the moment she stepped off the plane, almost eight months later, but to them, not a second had passed.

**His ****own admission took even him by surprise. She kissed him her answer, there in an underground bunker, sounds of whatever alien conflict was going on above them completely forgotten. **

She moved back for good. He thought he was the luckiest man on the planet, and told Mr Smith so, who offered to run a diagnostic check to see if that was fact. He declined the offer.

**She was offered a job at UNIT, a low artillery department – Sarah Jane had trained her well. Still, there was risk involved. He didn't want her to take it, and to protect her independence she pretended that annoyed her, but secretly she was flattered that he cared. She accepted only after her potential boss mentioned there was a second place open. He accepted too. **

He became a Doctor of Astronomy by the age of (or so his birth certificate said) twenty-three. Sarah Jane insisted on a celebratory diner and afterwards he walked Maria home. Taking a detour, he took her to the park where they'd first kissed. They lay beside one another in the sweet-smelling grass laced with evening dew and gazed up at the stars, him occasionally pointing out constellations. When she rolled over to look at him she gasped at what he was holding. As they walked home, the diamond on her finger was far more special than any she'd seen in the sky.

**Their worst fight finished with them screaming at each other in the street, pouring rain not stopping her from calling him out on his fear of commitment. He could feel them teetering on the edge and knew he wouldn't be able to handle the fall. There was only one thing he could do to save them. He had no ring, no trimmings, just one very wet knee as he knelt before her in the downpour. Her moment's hesitation stopped his heart, but soon he felt the cold droplets fall from her hair as she nodded. Their own tears of joy mingled with the sky's. **

He was adorably anxious that everything should go just right. Every detail had to be perfect – the decorations, the guest list, the venue. When the reception hall flooded with only weeks to go he panicked, terrified of letting her down. She kissed him and told him that was impossible. Some expert reorganisation on Sarah Jane's part allowed them to hold the reception as a picnic in the park where he'd proposed, under the stars, surrounded by their friends and family. The Doctor set up a sound system he claimed to have borrowed from Elvis, and he and Sarah Jane joined her son and his new wife on the dance "floor", along with Amy and Rory, Rani and Clyde, Gita and Haresh, Martha and Mickey, Chrissie and Ivan, Alan and…well, Alan. The night seemed to last forever, but when Maria Smith woke up the next morning she was glad it hadn't – yet again she found herself starting a new life, this time on the same hemisphere as the one she adored.

**Rani was almost disappointed in Clyde's soap opera disappearance on the morning of the wedding. His eventual reappearance, tuxedo covered in Slitheen goo and smelling slightly of vinegar, was ****only slightly less clichéd. He borrowed Santiago's slightly-too-long suit for the ceremony, though by that point she'd have married him, dripping Raxacaricofallapatorian slime or not. Haresh Chandra went against everything he'd ever believed in when he gave his daughter away to the Joker in the Pack. The smile on his face was one of pride only, however, and afterwards he clapped his new son-in-law on the back and welcomed him to the family. Paul Langer arrived with Mel and their eight-year-old son – Clyde's half brother, or cousin, depending on which way you looked at it – and by some timeline anomaly the Doctor who arrived at the reception was spiky-haired, pinstriped and had on his arm a certain Donna Noble. Celebrations went on long into the night, and the two earthbound newlyweds disobeyed the Judoon's orders by honeymooning on Paris – the planet. The Doctor promised to take full responsibility if they were caught and executed by the Shadow Proclamation. **

Determined not to steal her friends' thunder, Maria waited until after the wedding to tell Luke that her test had come out positive. He was overjoyed. Sarah Jane ordered them both to quit their posts at UNIT. Luke instead spent his days decorating the spare room a pale yellow and memorising every parenting book Mr Smith could access. K9 patrolled the house searching for anything remotely dangerous to an infant. Maria leafed through the Intergalactic Book of Baby Names, both sections – they wanted the baby's gender to be a surprise.

**Maria was four months in when Rani made her own announcement. Clyde, if he'd excuse the expression, went be****rserk. Not that he hated the idea – when he calmed down, he couldn't be more thrilled – but his experiences with his own father had scarred him, whatever he might tell you to the contrary. Inside he was terrified he'd be exactly the same. It took a whole lot of encouragement from all his friends to convince him and it was, finally, Luke who clinched it. "If you can be half as good a father as you are a friend, your kid will be the luckiest alive." **

Hoovering was the most strenuous activity they allowed her to do now she was well in to her third trimester. Her alien-busting days were over, at least for now. Daydreaming about pink frills and blue stripes she accidentally slammed the vacuum cleaner into the bottom of a set of shelves, sending a pile of heavy physics book flying with a loud crash. She cried out in surprise, and seconds later she heard rapid footsteps descending the stairs and the frantic cry of "Maria! What happened?" He burst through the door, heart beating against his chest, and could have fainted with relief when he saw her standing there. He enveloped her in a huge – but gentle – hug and they both realised, not for the first time, how much this little unborn person meant to both of them.

**Rani was carrying a boy. When Clyde couldn't stand the suspense any longer and asked to be told, she didn't want to find out, but one look at his beaming face when he returned and she knew beyond all shadow of a doubt**** they were going to have a son. Gita was ecstatic, and long before the due date she'd collected enough blue, football-patterned paraphernalia to clothe an army of babies. For their whole lives. Provided they didn't grow past the six-month size. **

Maria was taken to the hospital on her exact due date, and, after a twelve-hour labour, gave birth to a baby girl. Her husband was with her every step of the way. They named her Alana Jane, after both her maternal grandfather and paternal grandmother.

**Jacob ****Alistair Langer inherited his father's ..inventive.. time-keeping by arriving almost two weeks late. He was delivered by a certain Dr. Martha Jones. A second cot was installed in the attic, next to five-month-old Alana Jane's. **

_Sarah Jane Smith stared out of her attic window that night and many others since and thanked the universe once again, for giving her, after everything, a family. And, apparently, a post as a part-to-full-time babysitter. Smiling down at her grand-daughter and, to all intents and purposes, grandson, she didn't think it was possible to be happier. _


End file.
